Nickanan Night - A Wyrd Kalendar Mix

This Shrovetide feast on the collop and the pancake before knocking on doors and running away as part of Nickanan Night! Let this be your soundtrack to eggs, flour, bacon and mischief.

As well as insightful words on Shrovetide from Jim Moon's excellent March folklore podcast (which you can subscribe to here), this also contains tracks by Spike Milligan, The White Stripes, The Medical Mission Sisters, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Dean Martin, The Doors, David Bowie, Top of the Poppers, Matt Berry, Rob Bravery, Bob Dylan, The Future Sound of London, Ivor Cutler, The Seahorses, The Honey Pot, David Arnold, Danny John-Jules, Sendelica, Rhett and Link, The Orb, Jaded, Dany Rosevear and Frank Zappa.

Nickanan Night will coming knocking soon...

Nickanan Night is a musical mix  from the Wyrd Kalendar celebrating all things Shrove. 

From the Bacon Butties of Collop Monday, to the Ginger Knocking traditions associated with Nickanan Night and the over consumption of pancakes – this promises to be a filling treat.

Nickanan Night on Collop Monday

A Bacon Butty this morning.

It is pancake day tomorrow...
Once we have eaten our pancakes and got rid of our delicious treats we can prepare for the fast.
So today on Collop Monday or Shrove Monday or Peasen Monday we finish our meats.
We stuff our faces with our last steak or a bacon butty followed by pea soup ready for our veg only diet.
That all sounds wonderful but... beware of the vandals loose on Nickanan Night tonight...

Children playing Nick Nack on Collop Monday

In some villages naughty children play "Nick Nack" ... knocking on doors and running away. This is terrifying for anyone who owns a door and children should be warned against such shenanigans - as, not only does it frighten poor souls, it may result in the bairns who are caught getting no pancakes tomorrow or something even worse.

Nickanan the Demon - (Taken from the children's book "Nickanan and the Eggs" by Bernadette Teldwater)

It is well known that three knocks on three doors in succession are likely to raise the demon Nickanan who forces communities to abandon Lent in favour of forty days of a strict egg based diet. One village who suffered his visitation saved hundreds of pounds on toilet paper that year but were incredibly foul tempered throughout the feast of Lent.

Nickanan nights tend to be celebrated in Cornwall - if you have an experience of this tonight please do tell us here...